Tuesday, February 20, 2018

I received an email this morning looking for recommendations for getting published and a question about one publisher specifically.

Make sure you research any publisher in great detail before you work with them. Here are the best general rules for avoiding legal scams to get your money:

Authors NEVER pay for publishing.

They pay you.

There are no "fees" in traditional publishing.

A legit publisher will pay you an advance on royalties in exchange for the rights to the story.

NEVER. PAY. A. DIME.

A vanity press will scam you to pay for all the expenses to print and distribute your book and you end up with a garage full of books. Sometime in the end to add insult to injury, they will also own the rights to your story.

Never sign a contract with a publisher without it being reviewed by your lawyer or agent. YOUR lawyer. They will even offer lawyer services for another fee.

Monday, February 19, 2018

Here is the description from Amazon:

So begins the Time Traveller’s astonishing firsthand account of his journey eight hundred thousand years beyond his own era—and the story that launched H. G. Wells’s successful career. With a speculative leap that still fires the imagination, Wells sends his brave explorer to face a future burdened with our greatest hopes...and our darkest fears. A pull of the Time Machine’s lever propels him to the age of a slowly dying Earth. There he discovers two bizarre races—the ethereal Eloi and the subterranean Morlocks—who not only symbolize the duality of human nature, but offer a terrifying portrait of tomorrow as well.

Published in 1895, this masterpiece of invention captivated readers on the threshold of a new century. Thanks to Wells’s expert storytelling and provocative insight, The Time Machine will continue to enthrall readers for generations to come.

Monday, February 12, 2018

This week I read HELL DIVERS by Nicholas Smith.Here is the description from Amazon:

More than two centuries after World War III poisoned the planet, the final bastion of humanity lives on massive airships circling the globe in search of a habitable area to call home. Aging and outdated, most of the ships plummeted back to Earth long ago. The only thing keeping the two surviving lifeboats in the sky are Hell Divers - men and women who risk their lives by diving to the surface to scavenge for parts the ships desperately need.

When one of the remaining airships is damaged in an electrical storm, a Hell Diver team is deployed to a hostile zone called Hades. But there's something down there that's far worse than the mutated creatures discovered on dives in the past - something that threatens the fragile future of humanity.

Friday, February 9, 2018

It was three years ago today that I received the very first proof in the mail of my first novel, STILL FALLING.

So much has changed since then. Three more novels, four anthologies, a big pile of short stories and four Audible books.

There has been over a thousand blog posts in that three years. Book signings, literary conferences, newspaper interviews, the creation of Tannhauser Press and The Ventura Theater. So many projects, in so little time. It kind of amazes me all that I got done in addition to having a full time job with a long commute.

Looking back, getting my spine fixed, losing over 100 pounds, getting fit, writing book after book, raising two kids that are fully functional adult human being out on their own...

So now my dream has come true. I have all my time to do with what I will.

Wednesday, February 7, 2018

The hardest thing about being a writer is convincing your wife that lying on the sofa is work.
—John Hughes

One should not become an artist because he can, but because he must. It is only for those who would be miserable without it.
—Irving Stone

Don’t introduce 20 characters in the first chapter. Another rookie mistake. Your readers are eager to get started. Don’t bombard them with a barrage of names from four generations of the same family. Five names are enough to get started.
—John Grisham

Don't just plan to write – write. It is only by #writing, not dreaming about it, that we develop our own style.
—P.D. James

I do believe that tenacity counts. Not going away matters.
—Carole King

Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash.
—Leonard Cohen

The whole joy of writing comes from the opportunity to go over it and make it good.
—James Salter

I dream my painting and I paint my dream.
—Vincent van Gogh

No writer need feel sorry for himself if he writes and enjoys it, even if he doesn’t get paid.
—Irwin Shaw

If you can tell stories, create characters, devise incidents, and have sincerity and passion, it doesn't matter a damn how you write.
—W. Somerset Maugham

Monday, February 5, 2018

Here is the description from Amazon:

Humankind may have won the battle, but a new threat looms larger than ever before....Earth's armed forces have stopped the Lanky advance and chased their ships out of the solar system, but for CDC officer Andrew Grayson, the war feels anything but won. On Mars, the grinding duty of flushing out the twenty-meter-tall alien invaders from their burrows underground is wearing down troops and equipment at an alarming rate. And for the remaining extrasolar colonies, the threat of a Lanky attack is ever present.Earth's game changer? New advanced ships and weapons, designed to hunt and kill Lankies and place humanity's militaries on equal footing with their formidable foes. Andrew and his wife, Halley, both now burdened with command responsibilities and in charge of more lives than just their own, are once again in humanity's vanguard as they prepare for this new phase in the war. But the Lankies have their own agenda...and in war, the enemy doesn't usually wait until you are prepared. As Andrew is once again plunged into the chaos and violence of war with an unyielding species, he is forced to confront the toll this endless conflict is taking on them all, and the high price of survival...at any cost.